Oh, Witchy Girl
by MiraEstrellas
Summary: The story of Lou Ellen Blackstone: how she grew up in a graveyard, fought on the enemy side, reunited with her childhood friend, and became the counsellour of Cabin 20 in Camp Half-Blood.
1. Tell me about when you were a ghost

Lou Ellen lived in the graveyard with the black dogs and was found by a boy made of sunlight one night.

She didn't know it yet but the black dogs were said to appear and bark on the crossroads of Hecate, that is why they took care of her. She didn't know it yet but that magic she could make was also Hecate's. She didn't know it yet, but her mother (the mortal one) died before her other mother (Hecate, the goddess one) could deliver her in a basket of black wicker. She didn't know it yet, but that is why she was in the graveyard living with the black dogs; a graveyard with a crossroads path in the middle. She didn't know it yet, but it was an old tradition to leave children to the elements to see if they would survive.

The black dogs taught her how to steal from the people in the market with that magic she could conjure. Lou Ellen learned how to talk from the same people of the market. The black dogs kept her warm in the cold nights, they opened the doors of the mausoleum for her and Lou Ellen's first roommates were Hecate's canines and the bones of a woman and her children from 1874.

She had no names to give to the black dogs. Thirteen black dogs, operating like a hive mind that nurtured her. Lou Ellen had never seen them die and if one disappeared the mist and the shadows offered her a replacement during the night.

Sometimes, their eyes looked like headlights.

Everyone knew of the little unnamed girl who ran up and down the market with the black dogs, but no one bothered to ponder beyond that.

Where were her parents? Why was she alone?

The Mist, Hecate's Mist, kept them from getting worried. The black dogs took care of Lou Ellen the same way the bear took care of Atalanta when she was abandoned on the mountain.

Lou Ellen chose that name for herself. She memorised the names and last names and dates on the gravestones around her home, she even learned the little phrases people put in as well. Lou Ellen was the oldest gravestone she found: _Lou Ellen, 1600-1648._ She didn't know _Ellen_ was the last name, so she took both parts as her name and when people asked "Blackstone" was her last name. Because no one was really named Blackstone, so she remained nonexistent. Blackstone was what she looked in the mausoleum at night.

People didn't die and come to this graveyard too often. It was more of a forgotten space, with gravestones and statues washed by the rain. Lou Ellen took care of pulling the weeds and trimming the bushes with her hands because no one else would do it. The walls were graffitied on both sides. The only recent burials Lou Ellen performed herself, on the critters that died in her graveyard like stray dogs and birds.

(A stray mutt took fifteen minutes to die one autumn afternoon. Lou Ellen had never learned the concept of time but the sun was in the middle of the sky when the dog stopped heaving and whimpering. She buried it before the flies could start buzzing.)

So, she watched curiously when they brought a coffin and a group of five people dressed in dull colours watched two men lower it into a newly dug hole. When they left, Lou Ellen read the words on the gravestone.

_Gabriela Solace, 1977-2005_  
_"Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows."_

They only left sunflowers on this woman's grave, so Lou Ellen assumed she was made of sunshine. Just like the boy who came to visit the graveyard, first with two other adults and then alone.

Lou Ellen played hide-and-seek with him when he came alone. She didn't want to be found but he insisted on searching for her. Over and over again, he only found the black dogs behind the other gravestones, he was convinced by them that she didn't exist. Lou Ellen nursed the places where the boy petted the black dogs, because the sunlight on his fingers left marks like singes on the fur of her dogs. He was golden-haired like the sun, blue-eyed like the sky. He might be her age, if Lou Ellen knew how old she was herself.

Never had she had a friend who was also a kid, but this felt like friendship. What she understood of friendship. Lou Ellen left him flowers she picked from the rosebushes of the graveyard or stole from a kiosk in the market. The boy left her more sunflowers. Lou Ellen kept them in the mausoleum, a few where they could catch the sun but the majority where they couldn't and she watched them until they withered. (Sun was all sunflowers needed to live, she thought, that's why they were called sunflowers). The boy chased her down the market street once, he didn't catch her. When he cried sitting in front of the gravestone she let him be. Three times a woman had come to pick him up, rebuked him for running away. Once a man picked him instead. He brought a small fluffy dog to play with her black dogs, he didn't leave with the dog. (Lou Ellen found it dead by the gravestone of one _Everett Duncan, 1956-1989_ and her black dogs were to blame; she apologised with the lilies she stole). He didn't come back for two weeks after that, but he took the lilies so Lou Ellen considered herself — and her black dogs — forgiven.

"Gotcha!"

He came during the night, summertime, when Lou Ellen slept in the open with seven dogs around her. The boy grabbed her arm and didn't let go when Lou Ellen startled awake and tried to kick, scratch, and bite — all things the black dogs had taught her. She even went as far as baring her teeth and trying to bark. Though she was saved from the embarrassment on how non-threatening that sounded when the black dog she had been using as pillow barked as well, a real bark.

The boy let go and stepped back.

"I knew you were real."

Lou Ellen didn't move. She wrapped one arm around the neck of the black dog that had barked for her, burying half of her face in their fur.

"What are you?"

"A girl."

"Why are you here in the graveyard?"

"I live here."

"You can't live in a graveyard."

"Well, I do."

"I'm Will." Even in the night, with the lampposts so far they did a poor job to illuminate, his hair shined like the sun behind heavy clouds. Faintly, but still very much there.

"Lou Ellen."

"Why do you live in the graveyard?"

Lou Ellen shrugged. "I've always lived here."

"Are you really a ghost?"

"No."

"Are you hurt?"

Lou Ellen frowned. "No?" It came out as a halfway point towards a question, she didn't know why he was asking her that.

"You felt hurt."

Felt? "I'm not hurt. Who is the woman of the sunflowers?"

Is, because for her, the people of the graves were still here in present tense.

"My mum. She had cancer in her brain."

"I don't know what that is."

"It's a disease that spreads and kills you."

"Ah."

Will extended his hand to grab her again, but the black dog Lou Ellen still had her arms around bared their teeth and growled. Will stepped back.

"Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"Yeah. Why are you asking?"

"I felt it."

Felt. "Felt, how?"

"The same way I felt my mum's cancer."

At the hoot of an owl, all the black dogs turned their heads towards the mausoleum. Two owls perched on the wings of the angels on the roof— three, four, five, six. Those owls had never come here before. A daughter of Hecate or a son of Apollo at age eight, with no training and alone, wouldn't attract any monsters. A daughter of Hecate and a son of Apollo, together, might and do.

The black dogs began to growl when the owls reached double digits in number. Were they really owls? Their beaks looked too big, when they snapped them they sounded like metallic pincers. They appeared on the gravestones and other statues.

Were they bigger? They seemed bigger.

Lou Ellen realised then… she only had five black dogs. They pressed around her and Will, teeth still bared, still growling.

One of the owls landed on the ground.

Lou Ellen smelled the blood.

When the owl got too close, the black dog she was holding sprang forward with lips pulled back in a snarl. A snarl turned to a whimper and the smell of blood intensified, it splattered. The owl tore through the black dog. Lou Ellen was more surprised to find her black dogs bled like her than horrified with the gore, even as she tasted some of it with the tip of her tongue.

The owl ripped the stomach of the black dog open, snapped at guts and blood and flesh with the beak of an eagle. The other owls swarmed from their perches to feast too. They tore through the black dog in seconds, all twenty of them, and they turned for another leaving only the bones like piles of splinters.

Lou Ellen felt the beaks and the talons. The three black dogs still standing pushed her and Will into the mausoleum. Lou Ellen counted two dogs and Will when she closed the creaking door. Thirteen dogs and only two left, would the mist and shadows replace the eleven she had lost? The whimpers from outside had ceased as quickly as the owls had destroyed the black dog, as quickly as they had destroyed eleven of her black dogs.

Will stood between the walls and the stone coffin in the middle, where the woman of 1874 (Elizabeth Miller) slept eternally. On the opposite wall, in cabinets, slept her two children. Lou Ellen had been unable to find their names or their dates of death.

The lights in the skulls of the black dogs shined on their eyes but didn't illuminate the darkness of the mausoleum. It was impossible to hear anything crawling and Lou Ellen more heard her own breathing rebound inside her own head than on the walls. The owls bashed against the stone outside, hooting louder and more penetrating than any real owl should have. Lou Ellen felt the sting where they had managed to scratch her.

Will found her sunflowers, the petals crinkled when he grabbed them.

In a second, the world exploded.

After the explosion, there was silence.

Lou Ellen heaved for breath, her bruised arms ached where they held the black dog. There were voices above and around there, something heavy pressed down on every point of her body. She couldn't feel the black dog breathe, she couldn't remember if they were supposed to breathe . If she was supposed to breathe. The wings of a stone angel dug on her shoulder blades, like if they had grown from her the wrong way. What she should have heard were the low howls of her black dogs, but instead she heard voices from beyond the water the was submerged in — or water trapped inside her skull. She tried to bring the black dog closer but couldn't, if she tried the wings of the angel might go through her.

"It's two kids."

"Shit."

"Are you sure there's only two?"

"What were they doing in there?"

"The strix must have been after them."

Underneath her, the black dog was starting to feel less warm and more like pelt thrown over bones without anything else in between. The ribcage created indents on her arm. Had she broken the spine with her wrist?

Lou Ellen tried to breathe in deeply when the wings of the angel were removed from her back. She couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe.

"Alright."

The weight from her arms and legs and head disappeared, not that she could tell the difference with the pain that felt like if her heart had multiplied to settle on every pressure point. Two hands grabbed her and hefted her up. Lou Ellen tried to scratch, kick, bare her teeth, bark. None of her black dogs barked for her. She couldn't bark for herself.

"Get the other one!"

She was cradled against someone.

"Fuck's sake, Al, put her down. The damn thing just caved down on her."

"We didn't bring a healer, we need to leave now. She's one of mine."

"One of yours?"

"Hecate."

"Got the other one!"

"Where's the closest base?"

"Twenty minutes by foot."

"Are you sure they can hold on that long?"

"They will have to, we didn't bring any supplies."

"I don't want this kid to die on my arms, Torrington."

"Give him to Mendes, then."

"This one is Apollo for sure."

"Good. We need more healers."

Lou Ellen tried to wrap her arms around who carried her. She tried to open her eyes to check if her black dogs were following, if Will had the sunflowers, to see what happened to the owls of eagle beaks and eagle talons. She couldn't bring her eyes to open but they were moving, they were leaving the graveyard, her graveyard.

"Hold on, okay?" said a voice to her ear, the voice of who held her against their chest with care she had never known. "We're gonna make you and your friend all better."


	2. Tell me about the shrines of the gods

"I didn't know this was here."

"The Olympians have shrines all over the country. Keep your dog back."

"Teacup, heel."

The big black mongrel trotted back to Lou Ellen, circling around her once before stopping to peak from behind her legs. Like if he knew about the explosives Carol was handling. The daughter of Hephaestus sang along to some song Lou Ellen didn't recognise, though it didn't seem Carol really knew the song, she kept repeating the same verses over and over and over.

Lou Ellen wouldn't have called the dry fountain a shrine, even with the motif of a baby riding a swan. Had the water once come from the swan's open beak? There was nothing that told her this was dedicated to a god or goddess. The little square tiles of the empty pool were pale blue, leaves and twigs gathered near the sides. No one had cleaned the baby and the swan in a long while, grime and moisture and dry bird droppings stained the baby's carved curls and happy smile, the swan's wings.

"Who's this fountain belong to?"

Carol looked up from where she was setting the explosives, safe end of her soldering iron between her teeth. Awkwardly, she managed to say, "Apollo."

Not exactly how Lou Ellen had imaged Will's father.

Because after a year, Apollo was still just _Will's father _and not _god Apollo. _Just like Hephaestus was _Carol's father, _Tyche was _Marisol's mother, _Nemesis was _Homer's mother._

Hecate was _Al's mother, _and she was Lou Ellen's mother as well.

To Lou Ellen, it was a little amusing how she knew but also not what a mother was. She knew and understood the word, she just didn't know how it _worked _in practice. How did a mother operate? Lou Ellen had seen kids with their mothers walking down the street, they didn't seem to do more than grab their kids by the arm and asking them to _hurry, hurry, hurry up._

Will had found that sad when she asked him. Carol hadn't, and neither had Al.

Teacup had left Lou Ellen's side again to keep sniffing at the statue. He had been doing that since they arrived. Lou Ellen didn't know if it was because of the bird droppings or something divine he could sense, Al had told her familiars were a lot more Mist and magic sensitive than kids of Hecate.

"Will this really affect Apollo? He doesn't seem to care about this fountain."

Carol took the soldering iron from her mouth. "Everything counts. Even if no one comes to offer sacrifices or make prayers anymore some of his power is still linked to this fountain, it was made specifically for him after all."

"Why the swan?"

"That's one of his sacred animals." The soldering iron sparked. "Hold the flashlight higher."

Lou Ellen did. She was the only light in the night, other than the celestial bronze. The lampposts were too far.

Carol waved a hand in Teacup's face when he got too close to what she was working on. Lou Ellen was just about to call him but Teacup hopped back to her side, outside the fountain pool, just before they heard a low growl.

The dragon came down the path to where Lou Ellen was standing with Carol.

Monsters justs did that, amble around, especially monsters that couldn't use human speech. They were like exotic pets, and their side of this had them in spades.

Lou Ellen had been told by Al over and over again not to be afraid, the monsters fought with and for them. Fiorela, one of Lou Ellen's maternal sisters, said not to believe him. Always carry celestial bronze with you, she said. Never turn your back, she said. Never let your guard down, she said. At the first opportunity they _will _eat you, she said.

Especially the animals.

You can't trust a tiger not to bite you if you trip.

From where he had been ambling with a sword Homer, son of Nemesis and Carol's guard while she worked, rounded the fountain to stop the dragon from approaching them.

Greek dragons were more like serpents than dragons, serpents with feet and wings.

The dragon didn't like the look of Homer's bronze sword so it avoided them.

"Mendes?" Homer said to Carol.

"Almost done."

Lou Ellen kept her eyes on the dragon as it retreated. Wonder who was keeping that one in particular on a leash, it couldn't be easy to keep track of all the monsters. What did it eat if it wasn't demigods since it was their ally?

_The enemy, _her mind supplied, a voice that sounded like Al.

Carol stood up, dusting her knees and packing the soldering iron in a toolbox decorated in sparkling stickers of flowers and smiling animals. Lou Ellen had put the ones of the smiling animals. Ericka Bushe, a daughter of Demeter, gave her a sheet of stickers with nowhere to put them so on Carol's toolbox they went. Carol packed some wiring and other trinkets meant to help her set up the explosives.

She stepped out of the fountain.

"Let's get to a safe distance so I can blow this up. Lou Ellen, give it some cover? We don't want mortals to come over, wondering what happened."

Lou Ellen nodded.

Teacup nudged himself under her hand.

That is why she had come, as cover. This was field training. Handling the Mist was easier for a child of Hecate than it was for other demigods, but it still required practice to perfect. Using it to deceive the vendors at the market to give her food without paying was one thing, hiding the destruction of a stone and tile statue was another.

Lou Ellen always found it easier to envision the Mist like animals. Like her dogs running around but instead of black they were silver, leaving trails of silver clouds behind them. Like birds dive-bombing from the sky, wings spread and dancing around what she wished to hide from sight. Like a herd of deer. Like a bulking bear. Most magic required only imagination, childish imagination, and Lou Ellen was still a child.

Her imaginary dogs made of Mist ran in circles around and around the fountain, and they kept going, unharmed, when Carol pressed the button and the baby Apollo and his swan became debris. The head of the swan rolled on the ground, the beak seemed to be open in surprise now. Nothing discernible was left of Apollo.

Lou Ellen looked at the sky, waiting for an indication that the god had been hurt; but it was night time and there was only the grin of the moon. Artemis didn't show any concern.

None of the mortals on the streets or sleeping in the houses close to the fountain woke up or came running to look at the damage. The Mist — _Lou Ellen_ — had done its work.

"Those are the same explosives I used on the mausoleum," Carol said to Lou Ellen, grinning as if she were proud of that.

Lou Ellen didn't smile back.

As happy and welcomed as she was with them, she would never stop missing her graveyard and her black dogs. The memory of the wings of the stone angel against her back when the mausoleum exploded, the debris pressing down on every other part of her body threatening to snap her in half, the feeling of her last black dog deflating underneath her, that wasn't something she was going to forget. Carol had killed the strix, saved her and Will, but also took her away from home in the process.

"Where to, now?" asked Homer.

"We have to drop Lou Ellen at the base, it's way past her bedtime." They began to walk. Carol didn't grab Lou Ellen's hand as Al would have or Fiorela, Teacup was a good replacement with Lou Ellen's hand on his back. "Then we can go to that shrine of Tyche."

Understanding she was out of the conversation, Lou Ellen remained silent.

"I didn't know this was here."

"The Olympians have shrines all over the country. Keep your dog back."

"Teacup, heel."

The big black mongrel trotted back to Lou Ellen, circling around her once before stopping to peak from behind her legs. Like if he knew about the explosives Carol was handling. The daughter of Hephaestus sang along to some song Lou Ellen didn't recognise, though it didn't seem Carol really knew the song, she kept repeating the same verses over and over and over.

Lou Ellen wouldn't have called the dry fountain a shrine, even with the motif of a baby riding a swan. Had the water once come from the swan's open beak? There was nothing that told her this was dedicated to a god or goddess. The little square tiles of the empty pool were pale blue, leaves and twigs gathered near the sides. No one had cleaned the baby and the swan in a long while, grime and moisture and dry bird droppings stained the baby's carved curls and happy smile, the swan's wings.

"Who's this fountain belong to?"

Carol looked up from where she was setting the explosives, safe end of her soldering iron between her teeth. Awkwardly, she managed to say, "Apollo."

Not exactly how Lou Ellen had imaged Will's father.

Because after a year, Apollo was still just _Will's father _and not _god Apollo. _Just like Hephaestus was _Carol's father, _Tyche was _Marisol's mother, _Nemesis was _Homer's mother._

Hecate was _Al's mother, _and she was Lou Ellen's mother as well.

To Lou Ellen, it was a little amusing how she knew but also not what a mother was. She knew and understood the word, she just didn't know how it _worked _in practice. How did a mother operate? Lou Ellen had seen kids with their mothers walking down the street, they didn't seem to do more than grab their kids by the arm and asking them to _hurry, hurry, hurry up._

Will had found that sad when she asked him. Carol hadn't, and neither had Al.

Teacup had left Lou Ellen's side again to keep sniffing at the statue. He had been doing that since they arrived. Lou Ellen didn't know if it was because of the bird droppings or something divine he could sense, Al had told her familiars were a lot more Mist and magic sensitive than kids of Hecate.

"Will this really affect Apollo? He doesn't seem to care about this fountain."

Carol took the soldering iron from her mouth. "Everything counts. Even if no one comes to offer sacrifices or make prayers anymore some of his power is still linked to this fountain, it was made specifically for him after all."

"Why the swan?"

"That's one of his sacred animals." The soldering iron sparked. "Hold the flashlight higher."

Lou Ellen did. She was the only light in the night, other than the celestial bronze. The lampposts were too far.

Carol waved a hand in Teacup's face when he got too close to what she was working on. Lou Ellen was just about to call him but Teacup hopped back to her side, outside the fountain pool, just before they heard a low growl.

The dragon came down the path to where Lou Ellen was standing with Carol.

Monsters justs did that, amble around, especially monsters that couldn't use human speech. They were like exotic pets, and their side of this had them in spades.

Lou Ellen had been told by Al over and over again not to be afraid, the monsters fought with and for them. Fiorela, one of Lou Ellen's maternal sisters, said not to believe him. Always carry celestial bronze with you, she said. Never turn your back, she said. Never let your guard down, she said. At the first opportunity they _will _eat you, she said.

Especially the animals.

You can't trust a tiger not to bite you if you trip.

From where he had been ambling with a sword Homer, son of Nemesis and Carol's guard while she worked, rounded the fountain to stop the dragon from approaching them.

Greek dragons were more like serpents than dragons, serpents with feet and wings.

The dragon didn't like the look of Homer's bronze sword so it avoided them.

"Mendes?" Homer said to Carol.

"Almost done."

Lou Ellen kept her eyes on the dragon as it retreated. Wonder who was keeping that one in particular on a leash, it couldn't be easy to keep track of all the monsters. What did it eat if it wasn't demigods since it was their ally?

_The enemy, _her mind supplied, a voice that sounded like Al.

Carol stood up, dusting her knees and packing the soldering iron in a toolbox decorated in sparkling stickers of flowers and smiling animals. Lou Ellen had put the ones of the smiling animals. Ericka Bushe, a daughter of Demeter, gave her a sheet of stickers with nowhere to put them so on Carol's toolbox they went. Carol packed some wiring and other trinkets meant to help her set up the explosives.

She stepped out of the fountain.

"Let's get to a safe distance so I can blow this up. Lou Ellen, give it some cover? We don't want mortals to come over, wondering what happened."

Lou Ellen nodded.

Teacup nudged himself under her hand.

That is why she had come, as cover. This was field training. Handling the Mist was easier for a child of Hecate than it was for other demigods, but it still required practice to perfect. Using it to deceive the vendors at the market to give her food without paying was one thing, hiding the destruction of a stone and tile statue was another.

Lou Ellen always found it easier to envision the Mist like animals. Like her dogs running around but instead of black they were silver, leaving trails of silver clouds behind them. Like birds dive-bombing from the sky, wings spread and dancing around what she wished to hide from sight. Like a herd of deer. Like a bulking bear. Most magic required only imagination, childish imagination, and Lou Ellen was still a child.

Her imaginary dogs made of Mist ran in circles around and around the fountain, and they kept going, unharmed, when Carol pressed the button and the baby Apollo and his swan became debris. The head of the swan rolled on the ground, the beak seemed to be open in surprise now. Nothing discernible was left of Apollo.

Lou Ellen looked at the sky, waiting for an indication that the god had been hurt; but it was night time and there was only the grin of the moon. Artemis didn't show any concern.

None of the mortals on the streets or sleeping in the houses close to the fountain woke up or came running to look at the damage. The Mist — _Lou Ellen_ — had done its work.

"Those are the same explosives I used on the mausoleum," Carol said to Lou Ellen, grinning as if she were proud of that.

Lou Ellen didn't smile back.

As happy and welcomed as she was with them, she would never stop missing her graveyard and her black dogs. The memory of the wings of the stone angel against her back when the mausoleum exploded, the debris pressing down on every other part of her body threatening to snap her in half, the feeling of her last black dog deflating underneath her, that wasn't something she was going to forget. Carol had killed the strix, saved her and Will, but also took her away from home in the process.

"Where to, now?" asked Homer.

"We have to drop Lou Ellen at the base, it's way past her bedtime." They began to walk. Carol didn't grab Lou Ellen's hand as Al would have or Fiorela, Teacup was a good replacement with Lou Ellen's hand on his back. "Then we can go to that shrine of Tyche."

Understanding she was out of the conversation, Lou Ellen remained silent.

* * *

**A/N: Non-linear format? Non-linear format.**

**Quick clarifying statement: I know it says Alabaster Torrington was 16 after the Battle of Manhattan but making him Luke's age (aka 18) during TLT makes it cuter when imagining his interactions with Lou Ellen who was 8. So, taking creative liberties there.**


	3. Tell me about training as a soldier

"Again."

Fiorella threw the staff back to Lou Ellen, who caught it one-handed but stumbled and almost fell as a result. She was already heaving, sweaty, limbs shaking. Teacup whimpered from his corner, while Fiorella's bobcat did nothing but stare and groom her paws.

"I'm tired," said Lou Ellen.

"I know," said Fiorella, she was holding a staff as well. From her hip hung her usual weapon: a whip. "But Alabaster thinks we've delayed your training with weaponry long enough. You want to try with something else? A sword maybe?"

"No." Lou Ellen leaned on her staff. "The staff is what I'm most comfortable with."

Fiorella nodded, she smiled. "Al said it is the only weapon you liked out of our whole arsenal."

"It's nothing like my magic, but… " Lou Ellen shrugged.

"Nothing is ever as a child of Hecate's magic, but it pays to not always rely on things you conjure."

Lou Ellen swallowed, trying to get her breathing back to normal. She nodded. She lifted the staff again. Fiorella put her own staff straight on the ground, kept in place with magic, and raised a hand to signify 'wait'. She untied and re-tied her hair, that was turquoise today. Her eyes, like Lou Ellen's, were of two different colours — orange and blue, like a cat. Lou Ellen's were green and brown.

_Children of Hecate always have the weirdest eyes,_ the other demigods said.

_Children of Hecate always have the prettiest eyes,_ said Rumour, one of Lou Ellen's sisters.

There wasn't a set pattern for the eyes of a child of Hecate, not like there was with children of Athena (grey) or children of Apollo (blue), just that they were… attention-catching. Two colours was a way, colours swirled (like Al's black-and-green), or just uncommon (like Rumour and Joachim with purple).

"Ready?" Fiorella grabbed the staff.

Lou Ellen copied. "Ready." (Not really).

"Mind your feet, Lou."

Lou Ellen corrected her stance, right foot forward and left foot back. And— _Crack!_ Parry. _Crack!_ Parry. With any minor slip-up, Fiorella called all stops and they started over again. Lou Ellen swung the staff _left— left — left — right_. Fiorella _blocked — blocked — blocked_, as if were as easy to her as performing magic. Teacup whimpered again. "We need you to be aggressive," Al said, "they won't show you mercy." Lou Ellen was always unsure about them, was it the enemy or the monsters sleeping in their same quarters? Either way. _Crack!_ Block. _Crack! _Block.

"Find your footing," Fiorella said, her staff held horizontal and Lou Ellen's vertical between Fiorella's hands. "Don't lose your balance, don't let them knock you to the ground."

Teacup whimpered, and howled. Short and low.

The staff swooped Lou Ellen's knees, she fell.

Now, it was her who whimpered.

Soldier, that is all Lou Ellen's mind formed through the pain. Soldier, you can't rest until you master this.

Lou Ellen grew up in a graveyard with black dogs that took care of her, she didn't know much about soldiers. Were they like them? Like Fiorella, and Al, and Carol, and Homer. All the people she knew. Nice until they weren't. Fixated in better, better, better; in _choose your weapon_, in_ learn your magic_. You can't rest until you master this. When you picked up a weapon beyond your divine gifts, then you were a soldier. That is how Lou Ellen understood war. Choosing the staff meant she participated now, not just helped create cover for hijacks of shrines of the Olympics.

_Alabaster, she's ten you can't train her yet,_ Fiorella said. _I was younger than her when I began to learn,_ Al said.

"Up," Fiorella said. "Again."

Her sister was almost uncanny without the usual humour on her face, which is why Lou Ellen made no jokes. Usually they laughed, snarked, pulled the Mist for harmless pranks.

(Lou Ellen taught herself tricks in the graveyard and she used the black dogs to play. They snapped their jaws at the Mist like trying to swallow it.)

"Alabaster won't let us stop until you've mastered the basics at least, Lou."

In war there were also ranks. Outside of the war, Fiorella spoke back to Alabaster and made her own decisions. Called when or what, outside of the war she was also in charge and she was especially also in charge of Lou Ellen. Inside the war, what Al said went. No _why's_ or _but's_. General of war, they called him. It sounded important. In war, Al was Lou Ellen's general and she was a soldier. They weren't brother and sister.

"When can we add magic?" Lou Ellen asked, still on the floor, waiting for her knees to stop hurting.

Fiorella didn't pressure her, but she tapped the staff on the ground as if counting the seconds they were losing. "After you master the basics. You need to handle the weapon by itself before messing with it using magic."

Like how sometimes Fiorella's whip was a snake with a bronze head and a body of braided leather.

"What magic do you think I'll be able to do with the staff?"

Clearly considering this a loophole that counted as teaching, Fiorella smiled. "Break it in half, is one thing." She raised her staff and hit it dead centre with her knee, splitting it in two with a _snap!_, no jagged edge to testify it had been joined. "Double the weapon."

"Like Al's dual swords."

"Yes, like that." Fiorella threw one into the air and caught it again. "Also, twin torches." She jerked them like she would her whip, flames the colour fuchsia lit up on the points.

"Woah!" Lou Ellen finally pulled herself up, using her own staff as leverage. "No one has taught me how to conjure fire!"

"Fire can be unpredictable, we don't want you to get hurt."

That was a very strained 'we', but Lou Ellen let it slip.

Fiorella abandoned her place on middle, approaching Lou Ellen so she could look at the twin torches closer. They were both smiling, as it should. Whenever Alabaster imposed something as a general it took the smiles off their faces, neither of the sisters saw it as natural.

"The twin torches are Mother's most recognisable symbol, that's why they are on our flag."

Crossed twin torches, the thread that made the flames on the flag had a metallic and glittery look to it. Shining under the light. They changed the colours to their liking with magic, but the torches remained white.

"Could I turn the staff into something like you with the snake?"

"If you have enough imagination, then yes."

Lou Ellen had enough imagination. She could already see the two halves of her staff spinning in the air before turning into bronze and wooden raptor birds. Teacup would act as the leader, turned into a jet black hawk to guide them around in formation. Lou Ellen would still have her magic as way of defence even without the staff to engage.

"When will I participate in real battle?"

Fiorella half-scoffed half-laughed, as if the question were hilarious to her. She blew the fuchsia fire away and joined the two halves back into a staff.

"You won't."

Lou Ellen's shoulders slumped. "What? Then why am I training?"

"Because Alabaster won't listen to me."

"But I want to perform too!"

"Lou, you are a child and should be sticking to the little, quiet missions they assign you."

"But Rumour and Joachim can participate and they are only three years older than me!"

"I'm not having this discussion. Staff in position."

"Fiorella!"

"Lou. Lou, listen to me. You're just gonna have to be patient until you're old enough."

"But Al said—"

"What did Alabaster say?"

"He—" Alabaster hadn't really said anything, he had only given orders as a general for Lou Ellen to be trained with a weapon. Not once had he implied Lou Ellen would be joining them anytime soon.

With no answer to give, Lou Ellen slammed the end of her staff on the floor. Like stomping her foot.

"Being mad at me won't make me change my mind, Lou." Fiorella lifted the staff, ready. "Now—" She hit the tip of the staff on the floor. "—In position."

This time, Lou Ellen managed to stay on her feet. She lost, but she stayed on her feet. She had something to prove to her siblings and generals, she was ready for battle.


End file.
